Question

How can I get my toddler to stop terrorizing our pets?

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Our 18-month-old has started walking up to our dogs and hitting and kicking them and pulling their ears and tails. We've tried everything: telling her 'no,' giving her time-outs, taking her away from the dogs, explaining that it hurts them, and scolding her, but she just laughs and does it again. Our older dog is very tolerant and takes everything she dishes out (with a yelp here and there when she actually hurts him), but our puppy doesn't understand why it's happening and is becoming fearful. Any advice?

Mom Answers

One more thing--as others have said, (I think it's important enough to reiterate) another really important reason why kids should be taught to treat animals with respect is that when they meet strange animals they're probably treat them the same as their own pets. Even if our pets at home tolerate hitting/biting/fur pulling, other animals may not, and there's a recipe for tragedy.
We have a rottweiler at home, who is the most loving pet ever, but obviously we don't want our dd thinking she can go up to strange rotties and pull their velvety soft ears or hit them!! So for us this is a real concern.
Again, good luck!

We have a 3-year-old rottweiler and a 15-month-old dd. Our dd has, in the past couple of months, started the hitting, ear-pulling, fur-yanking behavior that so many parents of toddlers have described here! Our dog is so good and loving and patient that we're not at all worried about the dog hurting the baby, but it does make us even more anxious to teach our dd not to hurt her--she's such a good dog, she really doesn't deserve the punishment from our toddler. And she won't do anything to protect herself--she just wags her tail and licks our dd's hand. It's unreal, how loving and tolerant our dog is.
We have been consistently showing our dd how to pet the dog--we pet the dog, then take dd's hand and move it across the dog's fur gently and then praise dd. "That was such a nice gentle touch! I really like it when you pet the doggie so nicely!" We also tell her that hitting/biting hurts the doggie and we don't like it when she does it, that it isn't okay to do those things. DD has been improving in how she treats the dog; she will pet the dog gently most of the time now and even hug her and kiss her. The dog enjoys dd being around more now, and will even nose her hand in an effort to get dd to pet her sometimes. It's a much less stressful environment for all of us now.
As some pps have said, I think the key is consistent modeling of the desired behaviors, and lots and lots of praise when your child acts the way you want him/her to. My own personal opinion is that hitting/biting your child may backfire. How can you teach that hitting and biting are wrong when you're doing them yourself? Can you say to your child, do as I say, not as I do? It wouldn't feel right to me.
Good luck with this!

Well I have lots of dogs (I show my dogs like if you ever watch animal planet the dog shows on there) anyways I go to shows just about every weekend my son most of the time is very nice he goes up to my dogs and pats them and lay his head on him and says awwww. Sometimes he will pat to hard and I tell him a firm "Zackary no" and he stops my only problem with him is the fact because hes so used to dogs he goes up to strange dogs at shows and does the same thing to them, which as we all know not all dogs are good with children.

I have a 2 1/2 yr old Daughter and she LOVES my cats. Unfortunately my cats are UBER tolerant and even let her carry them around. She loves to put the kitty's "nite nite" by putting a little towel over them like a blanket. However, she also enjoys chasing them around. Most of the time she stops when I tell her to, but other times I have to get up and tell her no and put her in time out. I tell her that just like her she doesnt always want to be chased or to play and sometimes kitties dont want to play either. She is starting to learn even more because my mom has a cat who isnt so tolerant and has scratched her. She's starting to understand that not all kitties play and they dont always want to play. Just keep talking to them and showing them the RIGHT ways to do things. I also give my cats a place to "get away" from her as well. Very important!!

I have two dogs and one cat and one 20 month old son. He started pulling the cat tail and hair and pulling the dogs' hair(probably when he was about 1 year or so). I would tell him no and tell him gentle (this all started when he could walk and chase the animals) I would not tolerate any kind of cruel treatment to my animals and after showing him gentle, pulling him away and yelling NO didn't work I started tugging his curl by his ear...I only did this twice and then when he would go to pull the dogs hair or the cat's tail I would ask him if he would like me to pull his hair..that stopped him in is tracks...I didn't pull hard enough to make him cry...just hard enough to get his attention...now he hugs and kisses the cat and dogs and is always gentle...

Our daughter is 15 months old an we have two cats. She likes to hit them, drag them around, and pull out their hair. One of our cats just runs away when she comes after him, but our kitten would fight back. We taught our daughter how to pet the cats, even "tickle" them and she enjoys that, but also in our situation we decided that since our daughter wouldn't stop and giggled too, we allowed her to play freely with the kitten- meaning the kitten would scratch her if she played too hard. I know some parents aren't going to like that, but our daughter now has a new respect for the cats. She know that if she gives the cat an "owie" she might get one back. She still plays with them all the time, but is WAY more gentle now. I'd suggest the "Tickle Tickle" game we taught our daughter though. I tickled her and said tickle tickle, which made her laugh, and then showed her how to do it to daddy. Now when I say "tickle tickle" she tries (nicely) to "tickle" the cats, and they enjoy the rub.

Jenny,
I have an 18M old, Coltan, and he did the same thing, plus he would climb on our dogs back, trying to ride her. At first showing him how to pet her and using a simple phrase like "nice dog" didn't work either, but after a month of trying, it it's paying off. It's hard to understand, but pets are still very new to toddlers. Showing him was (I think) the breaking point. When he saw me pet her and hug her, he did the same. With riding her, I'm still working at that (CONSTANTLY) by sitting him down next to her. I sit close in with them, while our dog licks his face. He?s improved greatly and I think this will work. Don?t give up. There?s hope for your pup yet.

To the anonymous reply I think you are the idiot and obviously do not have a child !! As parents and pet owners we all go through virtually the same thing and when you have an older pet / child and a younger one comes along there is bound to be a lot of pulling, hitting, even biting until the younger child / pet is old enough to comprehend what is being taught. It is the same in every part of the world they have to learn !!! But most important they learn the more important dangers first. Then we sort out the younger/older pet/child problem !!

Jenny our 3 year old son is the same, we have continued to try to teach him not to do this, we are afraid that the dog will reteliate to this treatment, stay consistant and it will sink in to the childs head eventually, sometimes dags and kids dont mix..

I go through the same thing with our 14 month old but fortunately, our two dogs are very tolerant. It certainly helps that they're both 80 lbs. and fairly young, so he really can't easily hurt them. We've done all the things listed here, stopping him from hitting them or pulling their hair and showing him how to pet nicely, but what I've found most effective lately is to let him feed them. We give him pieces of their food and he gets such a kick feeding them piece by piece, although if we don't pay attention he helps himself to a few pieces as well - yuck! Him feeding them reinforces to them that he is their superior in the family "pack", and I've never seen either of them snap at him even when he takes a treat right out of their mouths. He also enjoys throwing a ball for them. (He's even learning to pet the cat nicely, but she's an old, smart cat and mostly stays out of his way, only coming around when he's nursing or sleeping.) Try redirecting their pet interactions from "pet the dog" which easily becomes "hit the dog", to "feed the dog" or "throw ball for dog". It's working for us.

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